Yeah, but I wasn't just asking about the number of actual floors: I meant, will there be an "official" count that (for example) counts the lobby as 3 floors, to give an "official" count of 81 or something - sort of the same way the FT will have an "official" 105 floors or whatever it is. No big deal, just curious...

Yikes. I didn't realize this site had so much cleanup and demo left to do. The closeup picture really helps. Thanks.

That's the northern portion of what was the original PATH station. Those "survivor stairs" have to be removed also. It's why that section of the "tub" will be completed last. If you look hard (in the upper lefthand corner) you can see the Goldman Sachs rising.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

When Downtown Express last visited the site in August, the 175-ton “Survivors’ Stairway” sat alone in open space. Last week, it was surrounded by equipment. Plate said there are three or four different construction projects within 10 feet of the stairs. He didn’t say it was slowing down the work but did say “we need to get it out of the way.”

The stairs once led from the W.T.C. plaza to Vesey St. and some survivors ran down them to escape the trade center complex on Sept. 11. The L.M.D.C. had proposed breaking up the stairs to save a remnant for the memorial museum and incorporate a piece in the Tower 2 entrance. Gov. Spitzer objected to the L.M.D.C. plan and his Empire State Development Corp. has been searching for a site to store the stairs intact.

Stairway proponents argue that since it is the only public W.T.C. remnant that is still on the site and was the last leg of survivors’ run to safety, it should be preserved entirely. Opponents counter that just the cost of moving it intact from and then back to the site would be over $2 million and that displaying it on the memorial plaza would create the mistaken impression that it was damaged by the collapsing towers. The stairs were damaged during the cleanup of the site.

Errol Cockfield, a spokesperson for Empire State, said the agency is moving quickly toward a decision but he did not know if it would be made in a matter of weeks. He did not comment on whether Battery Park City’s Site 2B, which residents hope will be the site of a new school, is under consideration to store the stairs.

Sayar Lonial, a senior aide to Councilmember Alan Gerson, told C.B. 1 members Tuesday that “it sounds like they will be putting the stairs on Site 2B.” He said E.S.D.C. has given assurances the stairway won’t remain on the site long enough to interfere with school construction. Lonial said he’s inclined to believe the promise because unlike the Pataki administration, Spitzer’s aides “don’t just say things to make us happy.”

Gerson and Spitzer are Democrats and Pataki is a Republican.

Train station

The temporary PATH commuter station will remain open at the W.T.C. while contractors continue to build the $2 billion commuter-subway station designed by the “poet of train stations,” Santiago Calatrava. Keeping it open during construction will require two more temporary entrances before the station opens at the end of 2009.

Next month, the Port’s contractors will demolish the station’s overhang awning entrance and recycle the valuable materials, which will help defray the project’s costs. The new entrance will move about 50 feet to the south and will stay there until December when the third temporary entrance will be built on Vesey St., on a site that is slated to get an arts center.

Is the June move the big thing Plate’s focused on now?

“There are a gazillion ‘big things,’” he said. “That’s the technical name.”

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

While some aides to Gov. Eliot Spitzer dither like Hamlet over the fate of the “Survivors’ Stairway,” the governor’s people at the Port Authority are making great progress at the World Trade Center site. Two things were clear from our visit to the site last week — construction is proceeding rapidly and the stairway is in the way. If it’s not yet slowing down the work, that will happen very soon.

Spitzer is still considering spending $2 million to move this misleading W.T.C. remnant back and forth. Although survivors escaping the W.T.C. in 2001 did in fact run down the stairway, the damage to the stairs was done in the months that followed the attack. As we pointed out before, keeping this humongous, 175-ton piece intact would be deception, not preservation, because too many W.T.C. visitors would believe the stairs were damaged by falling Twin Tower debris. Pieces of the stairs should be on display in the memorial museum and incorporated in the site’s Tower 2.

This week we hear the state agency that is supposed to promote economic development is not backing down from its idea to dump the stairs on Battery Park City’s Site 2B, where a school is needed to sustain the residential growth and economy of Lower Manhattan. The Empire State Development Corp. claims this will not interfere with school plans. Even if that hard-to-swallow pill were true, the plan would still be a waste of money.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

Two things were clear from our visit to the site last week — construction is proceeding rapidly and the stairway is in the way. If it’s not yet slowing down the work, that will happen very soon.

It's becoming clear to me too...

MAY 20, 2007

While all of "ground zero" buzzes with activity, the stair case stands out, surrounded by everything...

Visible accross the FT site...

I don't know what the holdup is. The governor needs to make a move as promised,
and get this resolved. Anyone who doubts Silverstein will build only has to
look up for all the proof necessary. It was done there, it can be done with the
rest of the site as well. Just get the government out of the way.

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

It is nice to see the two large cranes at the Freedom Tower site. When will there be visible evidence of the steel skeleton of the FT? It seems like they have been doing site prep forever. I was just wondering when floor construction will be at street level?

Time to get really moving on this. The Governor and Government should get out of the way and let Mr. Silverstein do his thing? 7 WTC is up and running, time for the other magnificent towers to follow suit as well!

Schick and Emil are revisiting one LMDC decision, a proposal in February to demolish almost all of a staircase that took some Sept. 11 survivors from the trade center complex to the street. The 175-ton staircase sits at the site as the last aboveground remnant of the complex.

Schick said the LMDC is working "to devise what we believe is a more complete and appropriate mitigation plan and at the same time to identify a location where the staircase can be moved intact and stored."

He said the LMDC is looking at 10 possible sites nearby to move the staircase to and said its timing is guided by the needs of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site and is excavating the land around the staircase to prepare for building another office tower.

Port Authority officials have said in recent weeks they need to clear the space where the staircase sits as soon as possible. They said it will take up to eight weeks to prepare the staircase to move.

The PA wants to clear and prepare the site as soon as possible, so they can meet the stated deadline and not have to pay Silverstein $300,000 a day for delays. Of course, the state can't get out of its own way...

__________________NEW YORK. World's capital.

“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.

I wish the "preservationists" would remember that ALREADY teenagers yawn about 9/11 - they actually can't even remember it. Who the HELL will care about a decrepit old staircase 3 or 4 or 5 decades down the line? This is just so silly.